Prisoner was agitated, swearing, officer's sex-assault trial hears

Sgt. Steven Desjourdy is on trial for sexual assault after a 2008 cellblock incident that came to light in the 2010 trial of a woman whose name is under a publication ban.

Photograph by: Mike Carroccetto
, Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — A woman who had her shirt and bra cut off in the Ottawa police cellblock was agitated, swearing and argumentative but didn’t seem suicidal, one of the officers who arrested her testified during a sergeant’s sexual assault trial Wednesday.

Const. Cameron Downie also said he had no idea why cellblock Sgt. Steven Desjourdy snipped off the petite woman’s top and bra with snub-nosed scissors on Sept. 6, 2008, as she lay on the floor surrounded by four male officers.

“I can’t articulate as to why the top was cut off,” said Downie, adding he’d never seen a strip search conducted like that before.

Downie testified the woman — who can’t be named — didn’t say or do anything to give him the impression she planned to harm herself.

Downie had instructed a recruit he was coaching to arrest the woman for public intoxication after she refused to leave after he tried to send her home with a warning.

Downie had spotted the woman swigging a beer on Rideau Street and stopped her.

Satisfied she wasn’t wanted for anything, Downie tried to let her go, but she demanded to know why she was stopped.

“I haven’t really had anyone come back and argue ‘why are you letting me go’ type-thing,” said Downie.

Once in the cells, the woman resisted a police search, slipping a wrist out of one of her handcuffs before mule-kicking a female special constable repeatedly.

But by the time the 100-pound woman was taken to the floor, she wasn’t resisting, said Downie, who is now a use-of-force instructor.

That’s when Desjourdy cut off her top and bra from behind, he said.

She was then left in a cell for hours, topless and in soiled pants, before police provided her a coverall known as a blue suit.

According to a written report prepared by Desjourdy, he removed the woman’s shirt and bra to prevent a potential suicide attempt and to clearly search her upper body.

But the cellblock sergeant who worked the shift before Desjourdy testified he couldn’t think of a reason why only some — and not all — of a suicidal prisoner’s clothes would be removed.

“I think if the decision was made to make them give up their clothing, you’d be taking all of it and issuing them a blue suit,” said Sgt. David Christie.

Christie said he didn’t remember anyone telling him that the woman was suicidal. Nor had he ever strip-searched a female prisoner in his 23 years of policing, he said. Strip searches were “quite infrequent,” Christie said.

Christie said it was highly unlikely that he wouldn’t make a note about a suicidal prisoner.

However, Christie agreed with Desjourdy’s lawyer Michael Edelson that the cellblock was a “dangerous and unpredictable” place and officers often have to make split-second decisions based on their perceptions of situations.

Officer and prisoner safety were a priority, and that meant thoroughly searching every prisoner.

Just hours before the removal of the woman’s clothes, a male prisoner who showed no signs of being suicidal wrapped his shirt around his neck and tied it to the bars.

Christie had to threaten to Taser the man before he agreed to remove his underwear.

Christie said the mere threat of using force was often enough to get a prisoner to comply.

“My threat of use of force was all that was required,” he said.

Christie testified Ottawa police policy was to take the woman into a separate room with an officer of the same gender so she could remove her clothing one piece at a time, but there was no way he would do that given the woman’s behaviour.